All About Aerie

Estela Laureano, a sophomore at UHart and the Events Manager of Aerie, sat down to discuss what Aerie is and what they have to offer.

“Aerie is a three-credit English course so every year the executive board rotates entirely and I started at the beginning of this academic year.”

According to their website, Aerie first started in 1972 under a different name, The Hog River Review. It describes the publication in the 1970s as something that “provided writers with the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to compose works of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and other literary genres. The Hog River Review was funded through generous donations, but the look and style of the magazine did not do its content justice. With sketched cover art and photo-copied production, The Hog River Review looked more like a pamphlet than a literary journal.” During the 80s and 90s, Aerie exploded with submissions and published a large variety of works submitted by students.

Professor Grossberg, the head creative writing department of the College of Arts & Sci-ences teaches the Aerie course.

“We usually get over a hundred submissions. We only get to print 10 to 15 percent of the submissions because it is a pretty small book,” says Estela.

She also added, “We are a literary magazine which traditionally means we take short stories, poetry, and art, but it is our goal this year to open Aerie up to anyone that wants to submit anything to us…photography, essays, and interviews. Anything you’d like as long as it is up to 3,000 words.”

Aerie also takes part in live entertainment. Aerie is set to host an open-mic night in Auer-bach Auditorium behind Hillyer College at 7 pm on October 30th. “Anyone who wants to comer

read or watch is more than welcome. We’re partnering with Spectrum, Dramatis Personae, and Women for Change to put on the event.”

Estela’s last remarks regarding Aerie were, “Our big thing is looking for as many submissions as possible and Aerie’s the best when we have a lot to choose from and when we have everybody’s voices contributing, so our biggest thing is our deadlines. Even though the 2020 Aerie volume won’t be released until the end of the spring semester, it is always good to start pushing and looking at them now.”

Deadlines for Aerie submissions are fast-approaching and can range from text to illustration. The deadline for text is October 21st and the deadline for visual art is on November 20th.